They Plopped the Baby

Talkin to the Woodpecker

Theology in the Trenches

By Kathleen Kjolhaug

 

Mid August always brings front porch sunshine, flowers in full bloom, and reverent quietude. Raspberries left in the patch offer immediate gratification and while I was enjoying just that, I heard “rat-a-tat-tat” upon metal. Perhaps a twig or a branch had found its way down from on high…is where my thoughts went, but as the sound came in patterned repetition, there was no mistaking what was happening.

 

A woodpecker had mistaken the backboard of the basketball hoop for a tree. Although the pole perhaps felt familiar under foot for birdie, once that beak came into contact with metal, it no doubt meant birdie’s feedback was quite different than expected. And, just as I thought, soon the rat-a-tat-tatting stopped.

 

As I continued picking berries while enjoying my moment in the sunlight…this too soon stopped as the fruit from the summer’s bounty was nowhere in sight. Enjoying the stillness, I meandered back into the house and right before entering…the beak to metal echoes could be heard across the farmyard once again.

 

I turned round just in time to catch a glimpse of birdie hard at work. Without fully understanding what it was going through, I knew enough from the sounds and visuals that this was not a comfortable situation…if not downright dangerous for birdie and beak. With the flap of my arm, and a holler into the midsummer air…I said, “Get away from that…it’s not exactly wood, you know.” And with that…off he flew.

 

Shaking my head upon entering the house, I wasn’t sure if I was more appalled that birdie tried a second time to do what he’d been doing…or taken aback that I’d actually hollered at birdie. Truth was…I felt bad for that woodpecker and its natural instincts to do what it did without sensing danger. Perhaps that’s the mamma in me. Perhaps that’s the instinct which surfaces within each of us when we see someone or something put themselves in harm’s way and we want to make it better. Birdie heeded my vocal warnings…or my flapping arms, but for all I know he’ll be back doing his harmful behavior sooner than later.

 

Truth is, we never know, do we. We never know if those whom we give warnings to will heed that still small voice...Your voice. But then you know about that, don’t You. You flapped your arms to out stretched on that cross to not only warn us, but to cover us with love extended. You warned us not to take away our fun…but to give us joy unspeakable. Thank you Lord.  Amen.